Category Archives: Bible Class

In the last 9 months I came across an approach to studying the Bible that I want to make you aware of. It is called “Discovery Bible Study (DBS)” It has been around for quite some time and I have no idea how this slipped past my Bible study radar. Once I learned about it, we changed our Sunday night small groups to use this approach. This is equipping our leaders and group members to be familiar with an approach to Bible study that we will later use to not only guide small group studies but help guide evangelistic, disciple-making Bible studies!

Here is why I want you to be aware of DBS. It is used by Disciples Making Movements (DMMs) around the world with a lot of impact on making disciples who make disciples.

1 – Who did you share with this past week? (Obedience/Accountability)2 – What are you thankful for? (Gratitude)3 – What challenges have you faced this week? (Prayer)4 – Read the passage and re-read the passage (you can split up the reading and re-reading among the group members – no more than 10 people)5 – Summarize the passage in your own words (have several people do this – a paraphrase)6 – What is your understanding of the passage?7 – What do you learn about God from this passage?8 – What do you learn about people from this passage?9 – How are you going to obey this passage? (Form an “I will…” statement)10 – Who are you going to share this passage with?11 – What can we pray about from this passage?

This is an important approach for a number of reasons. First, if you want a movement that is reproducible, it must be simple. Anyone can run the study above. That means you can train and launch people to use this method without a lot of complex explanation or training. Second, it has elements that get us in the word and in each other’s lives. Third, it moves us to action. Not many studies do that well. Fourth, it works with Christians and non-Christians.

Have you used DBS? What results have you seen? What changes or adjustments have you made?

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I love reading books about how to read the Bible. I guess I love that because I love meta-cognition, thinking about how we think about things. There are so many treasures in the scriptures and, as Bobby Valentine has written in the last two articles, the closer we come to understand things about their world… Continue Reading

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If you want information, teach information. If you want equipping make sure that you do more than ask questions about what could be done. Instead, get together with your group and plan something together. Work on it. Come back together and discuss what happened. I am convinced that much of our Bible class and adult… Continue Reading

One of my primary responsibilities at Northwest has been to lead our small group ministry. As a part of that I have always been interested in finding good curriculum. The problem is, the really good material is often really expensive (especially if you have to buy it for each group) and that cost makes it… Continue Reading

I haven’t mentioned the Bible Class Archive in a long while. It is a page on the blog where I compile many of the lessons for Bible class and small groups that I have written over the years. I have also included some of my co-laborers in the kingdom in the collaborative process and have… Continue Reading

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Hebrews 5:11-6:3 says, “11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone… Continue Reading

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Every Wednesday we have a group of people who get together to do coordinate outreach. This is not a class about how to do outreach or a Bible study on what outreach is about, why we should do it, etc. We do have some of that from time to time but that is not what… Continue Reading